It’s been three years since we last heard from The Parlor Mob, whose debut album And You Were a Crow successfully cradled the fine line between mainstream exposure and underground appeal, a rock n’ roll record borne of barefoot ideals and mustache machismo that was part Led Zeppelin, part Black Crowes, and all radio play. But the New Jersey band has surfaced with their follow-up, Dogs, which, like its predecessor, should curry compliments from people on either side of the popularity divide. However, unlike And You Were a Crow, Dogs has a more commercially viable edge to it, a darker, heavier hard rock flavour, heard especially on the songs “How It’s Going to Be,” “Fall Back,” “The Beginning,” and the album’s first single, “Into the Sun,” complete with a pop-driven chorus. What Dogs lacks, however, is the hippie groove that packed And You Were a Crow full of dust and soul, and while “Hard Enough,” “Slip Through My Hands,” and “Holding On” capture some of that ol’ feel good vibe, it’s clear The Parlor Mob have kicked it into attack mode this time around. You know, Dogs could have a little more boogie for my buck, but now that Dirty Sweet have rode off into the hazy horizon, it’s The Parlor Mob or bust. And I’m not ready to go down just yet.
Even though they hail from the City of Angels, Night Horse carry themselves with that Americana swagger befitting East Coast brawlers, chucking big, dopey, boogie-fried riffs at you like ham-sized fists that leave deep, lasting bruises. Picking up where their 2008 debut, The Dark Won’t Hide You, left off, Perdition Hymns lays the Southern stoner rock on nice n’ thick, incorporating plenty of organ, slide, and 70s-infused boxcar blues to send you on a weed-eating nostalgia trip to Altamont and back. Sure, it’s got all the dusty charm of Skynyrd or the Allmans, and sounds like a nasty mix of Cracktorch and the ‘Crowes, but ultimately (and maybe it’s because of the way singer Sam James Velde howls at the blood red moon) the songs on Perdition Hymns come off as bastard inventions from an alternate universe where Danzig grows up a wayward cowboy and not Lucifer’s brawny spawn.
San Diego’s Dirty Sweet belong to an emerging group of rock n’ roll revolutionaries, gentlemen prospectors clad in suspenders and dirty boots, returning home from the Gold Rush where they successfully panned along the banks of the country blues river for brilliant Southern rock nuggets. Along with contemporaries The Parlor Mob, Priestbird, The Main Street Gospel, Weird Owl, and (on a popular scale) Kings of Leon, they take the same trail blazed by The Rolling Stones, Cactus, The Allman Brothers, and The Black Crowes to usher in a new wave of forty-niner dust n’ soul known simply as mustache rock. American Spiritual, Dirty Sweet’s second album, is a slice of electric Americana with its fuzzy sights set squarely on the life and times of a country on the tipping point. They’ve even ratcheted up the tension this time around; where the songs on their first album, Of Monarchs and Beggars, were more homely and laid back, the songs on American Spiritual are more aggressive and boss, and come at you like an outlaw posse at high noon (dig “Get Up, Get Out,” “Please Beware,” “Kill or Be Killed,” and “Crimson Cavalry” for the loudest examples). However, this album isn’t without its laid back moments, and songs like “Star-Spangled Glamour,” “An Empty Road,” and “You Don’t Try” are prime examples of Dirty Sweet’s mastery of the front porch, sun-drenched ballad, while the title track is a Gothic gospel number that will haunt you just right. Smile a toothless grin, my friends, because mustache rock lives.
Check out the video for “Marionette” from American Spiritual!
Hell, why stop there? Check out the video for “You’ve Been Warned” from American Spiritual as well!
The Parlor Mob
Night Horse
Dirty Sweet